Today is my last day at home before I head back to university. The weather has continued throughout April - blue skies, sun, and heat every day. It hasn't rained for weeks. So yesterday was a good day to hang out with my best friend Danielle one final time, and we spent a lot of it down at the old bowling green (now essentially a park) in my town, with Coke and burgers and the sun. However, we also went to see A Little Chaos, because Danielle has an enormous crush on Alan Rickman, so I might as well write about it.
As far as period dramas go, I've seen better. I feel like something set at the French court should have been more unashamedly sleazy; a lot of pro reviewers have called A Little Chaos too sedate for the setting it's portraying, and I'd agree with that. It's also much too slow, with a beginning that goes on for ever (we know Le Notre is going to hire Sabine de Barra to do the landscape feature in Versailles, it really doesn't need to be dragged out) and a middle that could have been cut down a bit. It's not bloated so much as slow, which is at least something, because I still get angry sometimes about all the pointless, pointless filler in the Hobbit films.
There are lots of things that worked for me, though. Kate Winslet is wonderful as the widowed gardener Sabine de Barra. This film has a good cast in general, although I retain a special fondness for Stanley Tucci's flamboyant bisexual dandy, and Jennifer Ehle was enjoyable as his good-natured wife. The music was good, too - I'm tempted to get the soundtrack, which was just right for this film and really elevated some of the scenes. In terms of the plot, while I criticise the beginning and a lot of the middle, the last half hour was worth the price of admission alone. There's an absolutely marvellous scene when de Barra arrives at the court in Fontainebleau and she ends up being taken to a "secret space" where the women of the court gather; a few of them are familiar faces, such as Jennifer Ehle's character, but most are not. One of the women asks her about her marital status and she says she's widowed and had one child (who is dead now). It's something that's been hinted throughout the film, and we'll hear the full story later, because de Barra can't bear to tell it now - it's too painful. But that's OK - as we go round the circle of women, a lot of them admit that they've lost children (and a few husbands as well), and they're happy to say it out loud even though "the King doesn't allow death to be spoken of at court" (I have no idea if that's the actual line, but it's something like that). They reassure her that even though she might not be able to talk about it yet, some day she'll find the strength. It's an incredible, emotional scene that makes you feel it without being exploitative.
Anyway, it's not my favourite film but it was overall fun to watch, and what it lacked in plot and setting-appropriate sleaze it made up for in great acting, fun characters, and some genuinely touching scenes. Sadly I have no screencaps, because the costumes in this film were to die for.
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